2017-10-21: The Terror of the Midnight Seas
- Log: The Terror of the Midnight Seas
- Cast: Elena, Catenna, Jacqueline Barber, Iskandra Grendorre, Ethius Hesiod, Cyre H. Lorentz, Ryudo
- Where: Jolly Roger
- Date: 10-21-2017
- Summary: On behalf of the Church of Granas and the people of Jolly Roger, Elena gathers together allies to investigate the rumors of the Ghost Ship said to lurk the waters at midnight. She and her party find more than they bargained for...
==============================<* Jolly Roger *>=============================== Jolly Roger is the sole natural harbor for the entire Badlands region. Sitting on the southern part of Stark's Island, Jolly Roger is practically a port that misses its town. The ferries in and out of the Badlands congregate here -- as do the larger ships from across Ignas. Supply depots, bars, and a few hotels are more common than homes, as the town attracts precious few residents. The heat and lack of other natural resources make it unpleasant, to the extent that few stay here for long. Nonetheless, it is an important commercial crossroads. Life here is fast-paced and sometimes brutal, as crime is tragically common in this rough-and-tumble port city. Its main building is its largest: the rusted hull of an old ironclad, which some whisper comes from the Zeboim era. It has been rolled onto its side, and now serves as a combination of a port authority, bar, and apartments for some of Jolly Roger's few locals. The outside has a skull and crossbones painted prominently upon it.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
Rumors of a ghostly ship have been terrifying the sailors and workers around the Badlands, but most especially those who live and sail from Jolly Roger. The harbor has called upon the Adventurer's Guild to reassure the population that there's nothing to fear, and seeing in it an opportunity, the Church of Granas has tossed in an additional gella reward for the first Drifters to provide it with information on the ghostly threat.
After all, the Church cannot allow restless spirits to remain restless.
It is almost midnight. Drifters are to gather at the very end of the largest pier, which is devoid of life since a hour prior. The lights, they say, come very close to the piers, and nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to be out after dark as a result.
The Drifters will just need to sit down, maybe grab a fishing rod, and hope their luck is favorable - or try again another night. But hopefully not.
And that's how one might find Elena, sitting on one edge of the pier, towards the end, looking at the sea. There's a clear sky, not one cloud to hide the moonlight. No chance of rain or ill weather, which made this all the better. And the sea, in contrast to their task, was quite soothing to look at while waiting for the hired muscle to arrive.
Elena still didn't much like dealing with mercenaries, but it was for a good cause. She could probably manage to be good company long enough to see this through short of the worst people showing up.
What're the odds of that anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The idea of ghosts troubles Catenna. Her eschatological understanding is that the soul returns to the bosom of Ge Ramtos at death, to be reborn into a new life. That some linger after their time goes against how things should be.
Perhaps the rumours are nothing. But they are worth investigating.
"Hello," comes a low, accented voice from just to Elena's right.
How Catenna got there so quietly, Granas only knows. The Priestess of Celesdue - in her armoured bustier and blue-grey leggings, her sword belted at her side - stands with her hands clasped behind her back, rising on her toes a little as she looks out to sea. She's not the traditional sort one might expect of a mercenary.
Doubly so, in fact. She's never so much as asked Elena about money. She doesn't seem to care about gella whatsoever.
"The sea is calm tonight," she muses as she brings her hand around, brushing over one of the two stone tablets securely buckled at her belt. Looking over to Elena, she smiles pleasantly enough, canting her head to one side. "I do not know if restive souls often come out when it is daylight... but if they are there to be found, perhaps the chance will arise for them to return to their rest, and to the cycle of renewal."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline wasn't really the image that came to mind when people thought of 'hired muscle'. Honestly, she wouldn't use that phrase to refer to herself, either. Certainly, she was being hired to handle a problem, but she wasn't really joining for the sole purpose of fighting...
No, her tagging along was solely out of curiosity - the money was just a bonus. She was curious about this 'Ghost Ship', and whether or not the rumors were true.
It wasn't as if she hadn't seen ghosts before. She'd been to the Haunted Manor, and more recently she'd encountered...him.
Maybe this place would give her clues on how to more effectively deal with him.
She appears at the docks alongside Catenna, offering Elena a pleasant wave.
"Ah, Miss Elena, good to see you again! It's a nice night, isn't it? It's a little hard to believe that a 'Ghost Ship' might appear any second, when it's so pretty out..." Jacqueline comments with a friendly smile, then glances toward Catenna.
"Well, I suppose we'll see, won't we?"
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
Malevolence suppressed as much as she can, Iskandra joings in as well. "Miss Jay." She greets her friend with a cheerful wave, the others she sees so far are mostly strangers to her. The word 'gella' isn't spoken, but those who know her should be aware that coin is a constant consideration for the winged merchant. "So, this is where the ghost ship is expected?"
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
What Ethius' real interest is in much of anything is always going to be a thing of mystery. Not one person mentioned so much a hint of there being lost technology - just colorful descriptors of some kind of ghost ship putting a real crimp on commerce and travel down in that region. No one would accuse one Ethius Hesiod readily of being all that altruistic, but whatever it is - whatever pattern, idea, or eccentricity that drives him - he's there, in the company of those members of the Caravan Kinship that have answered the call.
"I am most appreciative of the invitation." Says the man, who was probably not directly invited at all. This guy is shady. He keeps half his face hidden under that bandanna of his, has that blank stare going, and a lack of much in the way of warmth or emotional tone to his words - speaking as though he means the exact literal definition of what the words mean, and little else.
He gives a little side glance to Iskandra, but says nothing to her.
What exactly is his stake in being here, anyway?
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Ghosts are a problem. Also a problem: taking a job from the Church of Granas. But ghosts are way more of a problem. You can keep Granas out by just not answering your door when those stupid missionaries come trampling about with their terrible books and way-too-frumpy fashion sense. Ugh. Terrible. Just awful. Patently so. Ghosts are worse, though. They don't care for doors. Also, someone is paying to get rid of these ghosts, and there isn't yet a bounty on annoying priests or priestesses.
Cyre is seated on the pier right next to Catenna. He seems to have converted his staff into a makeshift fishing rod, and the bucket next to him appears to be presently inhabited by some kind of extraordinarily fat, round fish. Its little fin is poking up out of the bucket and wiggling in the air. That's not Cyre's fault. The bucket is of a fair size, it's just that the fish is just way too fat. "It is," he says to the lady next to him. "Well. That's good at least. I don't know if ghosts care about waves, but I sure do."
Beat.
Cyre casts a withering look down Elena's way.
He sees you there, you damn priestess.
Ugh.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Jolly Roger hasn't been having the best of luck lately. Between shipyard raids by dragons and phantom ships that prowl the seas, there has been no shortage of disruptions to business lately. And with any disruption to the flow of money, there are numberous parties willing to pay a sum to anyone who finds a way to prevent profits from escaping their net.
As a discerning Geohound, Ryudo is aware of the fact that more than one party wants this ship gone. He had already accepted one contract before coming across the posting by the Church of Granas, and since no one said anything about contract exclusivity, he has made his way to the pier in order to knock out two jobs with one stone. He generally doesn't like accepting contracts from the Church, but it's hard to say no to free money.
As it so happens, among those gathered there's a familiar face...and for once it's one that he's not too unhappy to see. There's no mistaking who those ears belong to.
"Hey Cy..." The Geohound pauses mid-wave as he recognizes another face among those gathered, his cheery expression faltering mid-statement. That bonnet. Oh no. He knows the owner of that bonner.
...The Geohound promptly turns around without finishing what he was saying and turns around. If he's lucky no one heard him and the escape will be clean.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
The geohound doesn't get away.
Because Cyre has cat ears.
"Hey Ryudo," Cyre's ears twitch in his direction. "I see you've come to join us. Nice to see you. Long time no see."
IF HE HAS TO SUFFER THROUGH ELENA, YOU DO TOO.
DG: A party led by Elena is now entering Ghost Ship EX. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Into Darkness *>==========================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
There it sits, the Ghost Ship. Around it, the sea has gone completely quiet,
and a stillness fills the air. The clouds hang low like a mist. Only the
ship's shape can be clearly made out, its rotten exterior full of holes -
and that draconic head at its front, red eyes gleaming on it. Climbing onto
the ship can be done through a ladder, but once on the deck, no ways
downward present themselves, the primary door down locked and refusing to
budge. There's a hole to the side, though, just large enough for people to
crawl down into the pitch black depths. Mind your hands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pih88NDEw1M
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Overwhelm========================================
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
"I do not know either, but these ones, they say they do not come out at night. The Light of Granas keeps evil at bay, always," Elena responds to Catenna, getting up as others arrive. "Yes, it is a nice night!" she answers Jay, despite the looming threat of something like a vessel of restless souls. As she does not recognize Iskandra, the Songstress extends a hand in greeting. "Hello! I am Elena, a Songstress of Granas. It is nice to meet you!"
Ethius is looming, as he does. Elena doesn't bother him.
But then she notices Cyre, and then comes Ryudo. The priestess' mood seems to immediatly spoil as she glares the two of them down. "I see you could not resist the call of money. Please remember to put effort into reassuring the inhabitants of the area. They need it more than you need the pay!" Oh, it's going to be one of those adventures, where you question if the money is really worth it the entire way through. "And do not think of leaving!!" she screeches, towards Ryudo.
Midnight, finally, strikes. It gets misty rather quickly. The moonlight dims, the sky darkens. Lights gather from the horizon, wisps from every direction that finally break through the thick mist.
You can't even make out the rest of the piers or the port city behind you. All you can make out is what breaks through the thick mist, a black vessel that hardly looks like it should still float. No crew. No noise. It docks itself at the pier, ladders aligning with the Drifters like open invitations.
"W-Well... it would... s-surely be impolite to keep them waiting," Elena advances, climbing onto the deck of the ship. But there's no way down? No, there it is... a hatch. It swings open on its own, and there's still not a soul in sight.
"We do not have much choice."
Could it be the priestess is not as OK with this as she tries to show? (Yes. Yes that is precisely the case.)
DG: Elena has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Into Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"We shall," Catenna says with a small nod back to Jacqueline. "Spirits such as these often remain when they strongly feel they must have done more when they lived... perhaps we can help them come to grips with this."
Tilting her head towards Elena, Catenna adjusts the lower edge of her bustier, raising her eyebrows. "The Light of Granas has not been particularly successful with the Metal Demons, I notice," she comments in a dry tone.
And then Cyre makes his presence known, and Elena snaps at the catman. Catenna's lips immediately curve downward. "Excuse me," she says with a tilt of her head. "I would appreciate it if you would... not speak to Cyre in such a tone. He is a good man who has taken time out of his personal affairs to come and help you. He is certainly not obligated to be...."
She trails off. Something flickers in her peripheral vision.
The mist drifts in. The world seems to close them out. Frowning, Catenna turns, and the ghost ship fills her vision. A grim sense weighs upon her heart - this is a dark ship indeed.
"Be calm," she murmurs to Elena as she slowly draws her sword. It is hard, though, because she can distantly see the red sparks of eyeholes in that draconic prow carving.
As the hatch swings open, Catenna looks over to Cyre; she reaches out, delicately touching his shoulder.
Then she measures the distance. She steps back, then takes a short, measured jump from the pier, aiming to sail through the hole and into the belly of the ghost vessel.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Into Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
"The Guardians' idea of recruiting heroes to stop the Metal Demons was to throw them into a deadly temple full of traps and mortal perils. I would question if doing that did not cost us more willing heroes than the Metal Demons' own attacks on our cities, and we have naught to show for it but rocky artifacts," Elena replies, sourly. Oh no.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre just kind of stares at Elena.
You can tell that he might just be thinking about throwing the rudest possible gestures and devolving this whole conversation into yet another terrible theological hoo-hah. He's tempted. You can see it in his eyes.
He won't, though. Because there are ACTUAL LADIES PRESENT.
But then the air shifts. Cyre frowns, glancing up as his fishing is suddenly disturbed by the presence of... An enormous ghost ship. Uh. So it really HAS been coming to dock. "Catenna," he asides, "You don't suppose this ship is here to pick someone up, do you?"
Beat.
"This smells of a one-way trip to Ge Ramtos--" And then she hops right in. Cyre groans and forces himself up, his parachute deploying, inflating, and sending him sailing up aftre her.
Beat.
"HEY ELENA," Cyre shouts, then, because she just STARTED ARGUING WITH HIS LADYFRIEND. "MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP BEING SO SCARED OF GHOSTS AND JOIN US BRAVE GUARDIAN WORSHIPPERS INSTEAD OF CLUTCHING AT YOUR SCRIPTURES LIKE SOME KIND OF WUSS."
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
(He's shouting because he's in the air)
(He really wanted to make sure Elena heard him)
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna catches her heel on the hole, then pushes herself through with a short huff of breath, eyes darting towards Elena.
"The Guardians--"
Cyre starts yelling. Catenna winces.
"You are perfectly free not to help them," she finally says with a dip of her lashes. "But I should think you as a priestess would appreciate the ritual importance of undergoing a trial before beholding the faces of the gods. Assuming Granas has a face."
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius' first reflex is to get out an odd-looking eyeglass and go about chanting a Symbological spell - the sudden light patterns that show might startle, given the mood - and tap a finger against the lens to send electrical sorcery through it.
He holds it up to his eye as he surveys the ship. He sees... nothing. The little light cast from his lens is dwarfed and shunted to obscurity by the surrounding fog before the long-faded majesty of the derelict seafaring vessel that, by accounts, should not be.
He's among the last to approach, a hand going to his forehead.
Is he hesitating right then and there? He looked just about the most stoic and hardened of the lot, just standing there off to the side, keeping his head low and his mouth shut through the theological friction between the differing faiths present. Now...
He stashes away the lens, and follows suit quietly up the ladder without further quirk or qualm... no, wait, once up at the deck he looks towards a door. He even gets a hand it as he gives it a good press.
"It doesn't open. It must be locked from the other side." A part of him is about to suggest that they look for another way in, but... but what? A strong feeling about something. He can't quite figure it out. (Is it fear? Fear would be a strong feeling.)
Catenna's already leaping in before he can sort it out. His eyes narrow, drawing the quarterstaff in both hands as he tries to hurl himself right after, damned near throwing the floating Cyre aside.
...What's Ethius' problem, all of a sudden?
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
"Iskandra Grendorre, Alchemist and itinerant adventurer and trader." Iskandra introduces herself to Elena with a polite bow, and then the ... discourse Elena has with Cyre and Ryudo draws an immediate response, by turning her back to the priestess and approaching the two, "Hello there. So you too heard the call of money? I hope to come away with a good haul on top of the pay. Name's Iskandra in case you missed it."
She takes a good look at the ship when it arrives, and leaps, trying to get in before this ship sails off.
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Into Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline returns Iskandra's wave with a smile, before turning to take stock of everyone present. Iskandra, Elena, this new fellow apparently named Ryudo, and three members of the Kinship...it was a good crew.
Elena didn't seem to fond of Ryudo or Cyre, though...hm.
Well, there was no time to be concerned about that. Suddenly, their world is shrouded in mist, with only the ship visible in their surroundings.
"Well, at least they were kind enough to let the ladder down for us..." Jacqueline comments, climbing up onto the deck alongside the others.
She frowns slightly, though, and she...looks just a little uncomfortable as Cyre, Catenna, and Elena start...well, they're arguing. She doesn't butt in just yet, instead quietly drawing a bottle of pale-green liquid and taking a dose before moving toward the hatch and following the others down into it.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Invigoration Elixir toward her party's challenge, Into Darkness. DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Into Darkness. DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Reverse Parachute toward his party's challenge, Into Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
The Geohound's spikey black hop of hair freezes in its retreat when a certain cat-eared shaman BETRAYS THEIR BOND OF COMRADERIE by announcing his presence to their mutual nemesis. Slowly turning to face his doom, the man's head lowers in an open cringe as his ears are immediately assailed by a voice he had hoped never to hear again. Really, it's his own fault for accepting the money of a Church knowing that Elena numbered among its more proactive disciples. There is a lesson to be learned here about greed for Ryudo, but it is certainly not the one that that the blonde is wailing in his direction. He settles for taking a nice, calming deep breath of the sea air with closed eyes. One, two, three...
A smile is plastered on the Geohound's face as he turns toward Cyre. "Yeah, it sure has been. Good to see you. I take it she's an acquaintance of yours?" He nods to Catenna, offering her a more cheery reception than most strangers do by proxy of association. "A have to admit, this is a spookier than I was counting on. The ship isn't even in sight yet and I can barely hear you over the wailing of the banshees." Apparently that's the play. The flapping of wings draw attention to a hawk that lands on his shoulder, squawking once in the direction of the pier as an ominous shape approaches.
The Geohound offers a whistle as he takes in the sight of the phantom vessel. "Phew, damn. Either this is the real deal, or someone is sinking a lot of money into this production. I guess we'll be finding out soon enough." Taking up the rear guard, somewhat of a given due to his late arrival placing him behind the rest of the crew, he leaves the teasing of the Songstress to Cyre as they make their way into the depths of the ship proper. After all, teasing Elena at this point would be going back on his assertion that she's simply the scouting party for the ship's denizens.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Into Darkness.
===============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Into Darkness *>==========================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
There it sits, the Ghost Ship. Around it, the sea has gone completely quiet,
and a stillness fills the air. The clouds hang low like a mist. Only the
ship's shape can be clearly made out, its rotten exterior full of holes -
and that draconic head at its front, red eyes gleaming on it. Climbing onto
the ship can be done through a ladder, but once on the deck, no ways
downward present themselves, the primary door down locked and refusing to
budge. There's a hole to the side, though, just large enough for people to
crawl down into the pitch black depths. Mind your hands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pih88NDEw1M
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Overwhelm========================================
==========================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 1 *>=========================== ===========================< Results - Into Darkness >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elena 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Invigoration Elixir 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyre H. Lorentz 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Reverse Parachute 1 Agility Effects: Rally and Quicken ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iskandra Grendorre 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryudo 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catenna 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------- Leader: Elena 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm|Suffer(1) Effects: Quicken(1)|Stalwart(1) ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
DG: The party led by Elena has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
"Trials should be tests of faith, not literal mazes full of awful deadly traps!" Elena insists, having already forgotten this is a haunted vessel full of nasty things. She accelerates when Cyre shouts at her, largely to demonstrate she can be brave too. "I am not clutching to any scriptures!" is not her best counter-argument, but it's surely one.
Ethius is a little bit large for the shaft leading down. There's no catastrophic event that results from it, but maybe he hits his elbow or shoulder against something without meaning to. And Elena, poor Elena, she tumbles down the shaft, losing her grip onto its edges and the small ladder inside, and hitting the next room down with a loud THUD.
As the others make their way down, after landing on the ship's deck or climbing there with complete ease, Elena rises, hands on her hips, full attention on Cyre. Ryudo might be counting his blessings already.
"This is your fault! You were trying to distract me so I would slip!" Her attention is on him rather than on their surroundings. That's probably not a good thing. Who knows where they landed? Someone should probably light a torch or something.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Sleeping Tentacle *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The way forward is barred by a massive, white, slimy tentacle emerging from a lower level of the ship. Perhaps the beast it's attached to is sleeping, or not paying attention. Luckily, it doesn't completely bar the way forward. You can try to climb it gently to pass through, or sneak the long way around - there might, even, be another way to your destination. Just won't wake it up. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Exhaust, Madness===============================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre just stares at Elena.
He slowly, terribly, awfully grins. Like some kind of cheshire cat given legs and... people-ness.
"Oh. So you ARE afraid of ghosts."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline makes it down relatively quickly. In lieu of a torch she reaches into her pouch, pulling out a Crest and invoking it. A small ball of light appears in front of her, casting a dim glow on the area.
...And then, she sees the thing that's down here with them, and pales slightly.
The massive lays in the room, blocking the way forward and generally being a nuisance. She backpedals a bit, and looks to the others.
"...Everyone...it might be time to stow the arguments. I don't know what that thing is...but I highly suggest we don't wake it up." She whispers.
She gently urges the sphere of light forward, using it to scout out the way forward.
"I think we can get around this way...follow me, and try not to bother that thing..."
She starts to make her way forward, slowly and carefully...
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius catches the edge of something along the way down in his urgency, tumbling less-than-gracefully down an uncertain length and depth that is far more reckless and foolhardy than just about anything he might normally do. He tumbles into a safety roll to stop a fracture or worse, but doesn't come out the other end gracefully. One knee gets the worst of it, a quiet hiss from under the bandanna around the lower half of his face.
"Miss Catenna." Ethius says. His voice is a bit stronger in its inflection than usual. Angry? Worried? He says her name, which would suggest there is more to say. Why say her name if he doesn't?
That question now has grounds to be asked, as that appears to be what happens - a lack of any follow-up as he stands up again with help from support of a nearby wall.
That's when Jacqueline gets the light on, and the man's eyes widen. The quarterstaff is pointed outward like a horizontal bar, of sorts, as though he wants to stop them from going further--
He relaxes as Jacqueline breaks the matter down.
"I... I am in agreement." Why the pause between words? The staff is moved out of everyone's way. Once again, the lens comes out, as though trying to observe and see if the... thing... is some kind of thing attached to some other kind of thing?
The more important thing is that it's idle busywork that probably stops him from calling for peoples' names and then saying nothing, or otherwise playing momentary sentry as he moves carefully and quietly with the rest.
What's gotten into him?
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre's face falls as the light shines onto the murky, damp path ahead. And the enormous tentacle coiled around it.
Uh.
Hm.
"Right," Cyre glances over toward Elena, then Catenna and Ryudo. "We can keep talking banshee-stuff later. We've got... A thing."
A thing it certainly is. In fact, this whole mess seems to have set Ethius on edge. Is he scared of ghosts too? Is that why he almost damn near dunked Cyre into the sea a second ago...?
Well.
There's only one way forward, isn't there?
And so, as Jacqueline and Ethius suss out the best way to get by, Cyre leads the charge... with catlike tread.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
"I am not! I have been trained to endure the hardships of the battlefield!" Elena barks back at Cyre as the two continue this back and forth of... well let's be honest, Elena being immature. That's what it is. She may be a Songstress, she may be a good person, but boy is she thick-headed and does she have Opinions.
Opinions which are quickly silenced by the sight of the tentacle. "What... what manner of beast does this belong to?" she asks, pondering what size the attached body and head must be for a single tentacle to be so large. Thankfully it seems not to be moving...?
She follows after Jacqueline, no longer screeching about religion. That's a win, right? Instead she turns to Iskandra, for idle conversation that hopefully won't spiral downward.
"You are an alchemist? Do you specialize in any one kind of it or do you dabble in all fields?" The Church ever needs more medical supplies to help people, so it might not hurt to say hi!
DG: Elena has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"I was under the impression that your job involved going into literal mazes full of awful deadly traps," Catenna suggests with a shrug back at Elena, slipping through the opening. As Elena slips, the Priestess of Celesdue winces a little. "Careful," she murmurs. "...Right. We can argue another time."
Then someone's snapping at her. With a blink, Catenna turns to look over her shoulder. "Ethius?" she asks, slightly taken aback.
That's when Jay turns on the light.
Catenna pauses at the sight of the huge, ghostly-white tentacle draped through the hold. "Krakens aren't white," she murmurs, but trails off without further explanation. Hanging back a little ways, she considers the immense thing.
Waking it would be a very bad idea.
Carefully, the priestess produces a few sticks of incense from her pack. Murmuring a soft prayer under her breath, Catenna lights it, a soft, subtle aroma beginning to waft through the hold and down through the crack through which the tendril emerges. The smoke drifts over the tentacle, easily seeped in through slick skin and receptors.
The scent is pleasing to the nose - relaxing, truth be told. "Let us hope that this helps to keep our friend asleep," she whispers as she begins to inch around the tentacle on dainty, careful tiptoes.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Ritual Incense toward her party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Toward Iskandra, Ryudo offers a raised hand and terse greeting. "Ryudo. I supply the steel and take the pay where I can get it." He inclines his head toward the hawk on his shoulder. "The bird is Skye. He doesn't eat followers of Granas, contrary to what others might tell you." But it *is* tempting to teach him that trick. Jacqueline and Ethius receive nods in turn. Sizing up the crew as a whole, the swordsman gets a vibe that this adventuring band won't be as shabby as some that he's been forced to work alongside...but unless someone takes the lead from the Songstress soon, they're pretty much doomed.
...
Case in point, the Geohound's ears are assaulted once more as they descend into the depths of the vessel. Apparently her climbing skills leave something to be desired, and she feels the need to announce this to every denizen of the ship. "Hey blondie, don't they teach you anything about volume regulation in that Songstress school or whatever passes for it?" He idly fumbles for a lantern while firing off the verbal barbs. "We've been over this before. Are you *trying* to draw the attention of every denizen of the..." His own light source is lit just as Jacqueline advises them of the imminent danger -- and that he should put his own advice into practice. Nodding tightly to her, he falls into line behind the others and tries to maintain a tight formation.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle.
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
Iskandra laughs when Elena stumbles and falls, cheerful, "Now that's what I call divine justice." She makes sure it's loud enough for Elena to hear, because she already dislikes the priestess. "Nice to meet you, Ryudo." She glances at the bird, stretching her wings a bit and taking a closer look. "You should." She shares her opinion, and then she notices the tentacle and realizes it's imperative it stays asleep.
So she pulls out a big flask of some kind of clear liquid and poors it down the side of the tentacle, half of it evaporates soon after contact, briefly filling the air around her with a strong sedative before it fades away. She doesn't seem to be too affected, but then she probably had prepared for it.
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has used her Tool Alchemy Kit toward her party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle. DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Sleeping Tentacle.
=============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Sleeping Tentacle *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The way forward is barred by a massive, white, slimy tentacle emerging from a lower level of the ship. Perhaps the beast it's attached to is sleeping, or not paying attention. Luckily, it doesn't completely bar the way forward. You can try to climb it gently to pass through, or sneak the long way around - there might, even, be another way to your destination. Just won't wake it up. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Exhaust, Madness===============================
========================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 2 *>========================= =======================< Results - Sleeping Tentacle >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elena 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iskandra Grendorre 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Alchemy Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ryudo 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Ritual Incense 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Elena 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Exhaust(1)|Madness|Overwhelm Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Elena has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"I'm not certain...some manner of giant squid or octopus, I would imagine...or...worse..." Jacqueline comments. She hears Elena ask about alchemy, but doesn't butt in. After all, Iskandra was probably more in the need of money than she was!
She tries to make her way forward quietly...but things don't quite go as planned, for anyway. Whatever was on the other end pitches somewhat in its sleep, shaking the boat and causing most of the party to topple and fly into a heap on the other side of the room.
It's hard to tell if the two events are related, but it seems to calm down again when Iskandra applies that sedative. Ethius's footing is sure enough to keep him from tumbling along with the the rest of them.
"O-ow...well, at least we're past it...is everyone alright?" Jacqueline asks with a groan, carefully removing herself from the heap.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
==================================================<* Ghost Ship EX *>=================================================== ==========================================<* CHALLENGE - Navigate The Hold *>=========================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- This must be the room where every rope goes when it dies. A section of the ship's bottom hold, completely floorless, sits before you, glowing, threatening green waters far below. But there's rope. So. Much. Rope. Massive nets cast across the chasm, leading to the next section of the ship. The ropes are pretty tangled up, though... and wet... and sticky. You're going to need to figure out which ones to use. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
The tentacle stirs. The boat pitches. Bodies go flying everywhere. This is how some animes start, and everyone knows exactly how they end.
This time, though...
Cyre squawks as his catlike forward march is so rudely interrupted. Something smacks into him from behind. He pitches into something else entirely. The whole mess of bodies goes rolling into a bulkhead.
Except... Cyre is...
...Okay?
"U-ugh," he groans, glancing up from something... unusually plush.
And also armored. "Uh." He says, turning his eyes further up. "Uhhhh."
"H-hi, Catenna."
Beat.
"Wait, something's not right--"
He looks over his shoulder, down to where his legs are sprawled...
...Over Elena.
"..."
".........."
"You know," he says, carefully, "Under less terrible circumstances, I really would be pretty happy about this."
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
It may be a bit too soon to be asking that question, once everyone comes to after the heart-pounding, mind-numbing scare of that THING waking up. If it so much as flexed, it would be trivial for it to rend this ship in two - let alone snatch any one of them away, to never be seen again.
Investigating one's surroundings, it sure looks like it might have already had a go at trying to pull the rotted ship apart. Where they lay, one only needs to turn their head down juuuust a ways to see...
There's no floor.
All of them are being suspended above the dim, nefarious glow of green water underneath. The water is unnaturally still. No ripples form when water drips from above. One doesn't hear the splash. It simply ceases to be.
This 'water' below is the only light available to them. Everywhere else is darkness. To the touch...
Ropes. Nets, hammocks... nooses?... they are frayed and withered from age and the elements, and to move about them at all threatens... no, let's not think about what fate lies in store for those who fall into the drink below.
Ethius, having avoided slipping about, stands near the top of the tangled mass, staring down at the lot of them. He seems... mesmerized? One would half-expect for him to get a knife and cut them all loose, but it would seem such a plot twist is not (yet) in store.
"Stay there." Ethius speaks. He turns his back. "By appearances, the netting is stable. I would not make sudden moves."
Yeah, there's no way in hell anyone is going to stay here.
"I will return shortly, in which to take our leave."
...
Something's going on. What is it, with him?
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
Let's remain happy that the only thing that giant tentacle did was beat on the party senseless for a few moments, yes. This scuffle still ends with Elena under Cyre, and it takes her a long, painful few seconds to realize where she is and flail in an attempt to free herself.
"I would not! Get up!"
Life is currently awful.
She's even forgotten to reply to Ryudo in all this chaos, isn't that the best part of the trip so far?
Eventually she does rise, one assumes, either because Cyre complies or becomes bored of being on Elena. She dusts herself, she frets, she even pulls her Mana Egg out, the shining blue jewel letting off pulses of healing blue light which, unlike the Songstress, do not discriminate, making everyone's life just a bit more tolerable after that rodeo with the tentacle.
But then they are faced with a puzzle of ropes.
"Certainly there must be another way across," she says, reaching over to touch a rope and noting that it's very wet. "These stink," she also states, concerned.
Poor sheltered priestess.
Where is Ethius going though? That man is as mysterious as he's tall. Which is to say, very.
DG: Elena has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Everyone takes a tumble. With a yelp, Catenna hurtles into the bulkhead, hits the ground and slides. Something lands atop her.
She gives her head a shake. Then she looks down. To a pair of cat ears sitting atop the upper curves of her chest.
She blushes as Cyre lifts his face out of her cleavage. "H-hello, Cyre," she murmurs, squirming a bit and accidentally giving Elena a bump with her calves. "Sorry," she murmurs awkwardly.
Then she sighs, letting out a light huff and tapping the catman on the nose with a delicate finger. She says something tart to him in Baskar.
And then she looks down.
"Oh dear," she breathes as she realizes everything is rope. She can't even tell if that's water down below.
Suddenly, Ethius vanishes with no explanation. Catenna peers after him as she climbs back to her feet, blushing, but staying close to Cyre, reaching out to take his hand and give it a squeeze.
Striking up another stick of incense, this batch a mind-clearing, thought-tantalyzing thing, Catenna begins to move forward with the utmost care, letting the subtle spark of the flame cast a bit of light. She breathes the scent in, then lets it out.
"...That one," she murmurs as she reaches for a rope, then another.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Ritual Incense toward her party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
Now that they're past the tentacle, albeit a little worse for the wear, Iskandra gets around to answering Elena. "My healing potions and other curatives are among the best around. Reasonable prices, discounts for repeat customers and bulk orders, taking requests for specialized research. I also provide stimulants and other useful alchemical concoctions, but those aren't my specialty." She answers with a smile, "I hope that answer your question, payment for any order is due up front."
Then she looks at the netting and decides this is a perfect time to get out another useful alchemical concoction. She puts on some gloves and then smears some kind of sticky liquid over both boots and gloves, then passes the bottle to the next person. "Stability glue, it'll help us traverse this without too much risk."
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has used her Tool Alchemy Kit toward her party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Ahahaha--" Cyre gets summarily bopped. "Y-yeah. Sure! Uh."
Beat.
He's still on Elena.
He glances back and stares at her.
Does he get off? He is a cat, after all. If it fits, he sits. But no, this is Elena we're talking about here. Cyre wouldn't do that even if you paid him to.
This is the worst.
Also the worst: This.
"Ugh, it's so cramped in here. I can't even use the glider," Cyre mutters, taking in a couple of whiffs of that cloying, relaxing scent. "Right," he nodes after Catenna, leaping on after her. "Let's get to the bottom of this mess."
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline's...kind of glad she pulled herself out of that mess early on, but it looks like everyone got out of it relatively alright. She does send Cyre a frown at his comment, though.
"Don't be a creep, Cyre." She scolds, then turns to study the situation they've found themselves in. They've ended up in some kind of netting, and if they want to proceed it looks like they'll need to climb up using some rope...
And, of course, Ethius is nowhere to be seen.
That sounds about right. She has no intention of just waiting here, though.
"Let's see..." Jacqueline says, moving to study one of the ropes and giving it an experimental pull. Fortunately, her thick gloves make it easier to grip onto the rope...as well as make her less creeped out about the texture of it.
She glances toward Catenna, nods, then tests her rope out, as well.
"If possible, we may need to tie some together..." She comments.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Unfortunately, the light and accompanying warnings seem to have come too late. It's hard to say exactly who (Elena) is to responsible for generating enough of a ruckus to disturb a slumbering monstrosity, but whoever they are (Elena) probably shares that blame with those the parties actively engaged in further antagonizing. Even if those poor, noble souls are to be commended for their continued forebearance.
The monster doesn't care who started it. *All* of the parties engaged in some form of verbal sparring are unceremoneously rocked across the room in a heap of bodies. All except for Iskandra, who came prepared for the unusual need of being catty while avoiding personal harm--putting the beast back to sleep before it can communicate its displeasure in far more visceral ways. The hawk beats its wings alongside her in the space previously occupied by Ryudo, seemingly sharing a knowing glance with her. One gets the impression that if the hawk could shrug while flying, it might do so right now. ...Nah.
At the bottom of the pile rests a bruised and highly irate Geohound. "Move.", he gruffly demands of the Songstress sitting on his back, albeit a bit late as she was already in motion. "And lay off the sweets before your next adventure." Or at least offer him some better fanservice, seriously.
Taking in their new surroundings, Ryudo finds himself nodding over to Cyre. "Yeah, Skye's utility is going to be pretty limited here too. Pulling people out of the drink is about it." Utility? The hawk? That probably sounds strange to half of those gathered here, but less so to the others gathered. Jacqueline seems to be the closest thing to a voice of reason at this venture, so he kneels down beside her to offer whatever assistance she requires.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Navigate The Hold.
==================================================<* Ghost Ship EX *>=================================================== ==========================================<* CHALLENGE - Navigate The Hold *>=========================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- This must be the room where every rope goes when it dies. A section of the ship's bottom hold, completely floorless, sits before you, glowing, threatening green waters far below. But there's rope. So. Much. Rope. Massive nets cast across the chasm, leading to the next section of the ship. The ropes are pretty tangled up, though... and wet... and sticky. You're going to need to figure out which ones to use. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
=============================================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 3 *>============================================== ============================================< Results - Navigate The Hold >============================================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elena 0 --(4)--> 4 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 0 --(4)--> 4 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 0 --(4)--> 4 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(3)--> 3 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iskandra Grendorre 0 --(6)--> 6 Pass Alchemy Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ryudo 0 --(4)--> 4 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------�@
DG: The party led by Elena has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Jay mostly leads the charge in helping arrange the proper way to put these gross, filthy, threadbare ropes together in order to make sure everyone crawls out of this predicament high and dry. Unfortunately for Elena, they consist of pretty much the grossest ropes imaginable. Ryudo proves a fine enough pair of extra hands in implementing the whole picture, even if they end up a touch extraneous. With Iskandra's gluing, the resulting COMPLETELY GROSS rope amalgamation is good enough to climb out with.
Catenna's incense provides another, warmer light for the lot of them to work with as they all scale upward - and there's enough clearance space now for Cyre to bust out the parachute to catch anyone who falls, should they do so. They'll all come together just about where they were before they had that spill into the ropey hold - there's one guy they have to catch up to...!
...
In spite of his best attempts, it seems like Ethius doesn't get to run off much of anywhere before everyone's found their way up. Looking at him from the back... he looks tense. The quarterstaff is held like one might a walking stick, his left hand squeezing it so tight that the leather of his gloves strain at the knuckles.
Nothing about this place matches any pattern observed about his behavior, among those who have traveled with him prior.
No apologies are given for leaving them behind. (Come to think of it, he never got around to introducing himself to the people who are new to him - man, he's worse than Ryudo there.) His right hand goes to his forehead. This is probably a stress headache.
"Is everyone there?" He asks, without looking behind himself. It's tough to gauge whether he's relieved, disappointed, or what, as he looks ahead. "Very well. Might I suggest we continue our search for a way outside?"
He's not the one who should be making the calls here.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has drawn a new Challenge. =============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>==============================
=============================================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 3 *>============================================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Engulfing Depths *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The waters below glisten; the party is forced, for just one hallway's time, to step into the green waters that illuminate the bottom levels of the ghostly broken ship. The knee-deep waters are heavy, like trying to walk through steel. Hands and tentacles surge from them, watery appendages trying to force everyone down into the water. Fight for your right to remain above the water! =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Weaken========================================== [OOC] Ethius Hesiod says, "huh, that would've worked better if the last one were flubbed." [OOC] Jacqueline Barber says, "Hahah, yeah." [OOC] Cyre H. Lorentz says, "Nah it's cool, I got this." [OOC] Cyre H. Lorentz says, "God, this is just making me want to write some Darkest Dungeon Diggers" [OOC] Ryudo says, "Slowly. Gently. This is how a life is taken. o_o" [OOC] Elena says, "Make the cards nothing but blurbs of narration." [OOC] Cyre H. Lorentz says, "MORTALITY CLARIFIED IN A SINGLE STRIKE" [OOC] Iskandra Grendorre says, "Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer"
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Hey now, you know me better than that," Cyre teases in Jacqueline's direction. "Don't worry, I was just trying to go for some levity. Solais knows that we need some in..." His face twists into a sour expression, "Here."
"Speaking of which," he looks over to Ethius with that same sour face, "Ethius. What's the deal with you? You're acting more... You than normal. Is something wro--"
*splish*
Cyre looks down. The water is up to his ankles. In fact, this entire hallway seems to be twisted in such a way that murky water has just accumulated through its entirety, leaving just enough space to only end up submerged to the knee.
Plus, you know, the dark.
"Damnit," Cyre sighs, removing his censer from its place at his hip. He lights it up, filling the air with the invigorating wisps of smoke that so often waft from within. It also shines a bit more light across the tenebrous murk. "Come on. This is the only way forward. I swear, it seems like this place is just trying to drown us--"
A fleshy tentacle suddenly bursts out of the water and seizes around his leg. Cyre hisses a curse as he flails to try and break free. But more of those tendrils are breaking through, now. The corridor is filling with even more water. Well. Water, and... some kind of terrible, viscous slime. "Ghhh- shit, what is WITH this place!? Let... me... go!"
Cyre... might need some help.
The tentacles are only gaining more purchase.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Invigorating Vapors toward his party's challenge, Engulfing Depths. [OOC] White Knight Leo says, "Cyre: 'shit no i don't want to be in one of these animes!!!'" [OOC] Ryudo says, "The girls need some fanservice too. :D :D :D" [OOC] Cyre H. Lorentz says, "welp" [OOC] Iskandra Grendorre says, "Thank you for volunteering Ryudo"
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Setting the incense down atop a post and letting the clarifying scent tease the senses to wakefulness, Catenna makes her landing with little trouble. "I am alright," she assures, once again drawing her sword. She looks back towards Cyre, then Jacqueline, as if to confirm the two are alright as well. She takes a step -
*sploosh*
"...Oh dear," Catenna murmurs as she looks down into the water.
Cyre lights up his censer - and the tentacles react immediately. More tendrils grasp at him. With a gasp, Catenna splashes towards him, shouting something in Zortroan; a small wave surges through the green water to batter away some of the tentacles. But not even the magic of Lucadia is much help. She reaches Cyre, holding out a hand to grasp for one of his, attempting to grip him, then take ahold of a tentacle and wrestle it off of him. "Cyre, hang on," she shouts, her eyes wide with alarm.
And then something wet, slimy and cold touches her leg, felt through her pants. Catenna stiffens and widens her eyes. "Oh no."
Tentacles surge out of the water, encircling her legs, one snaking around her midsection and up her chest. Another tries to wind itself around her face. With a strained sound, she attempts to wrangle the tentacles away from her mouth, managing to slash one off with her sword before another tentacle grabs her by the wrist. Her free hand is still trying to wrestle a tentacle out from around Cyre.
Someone better help them before both of them get pfired for breaking rating.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Engulfing Depths. [OOC] Cyre H. Lorentz says, "pfffft catenna"
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
Ew, ew, ew. These ropes!
At least Elena can distract herself through both Ryudo and Iskandra. For the former, she says: "I do not indulge in sweets! ... much. It is improper knowing there are those who are starving in the world." She sure did just accidently hand him some more bullets. For the alchemist, Elena has much nicer words.
"I see. I would like us to speek at a better time. There have been many infestations of Wels of late. We require means to help deal with infections and sickness. You will be paid in full for the cost to produce those potions, of course." The priestess might not be the greatest face for her church, but maybe Iskandra can ignore that when there's money to be made.
They cross the ropes, finally. And then... splash.
Elena looks down.
"This is not water," she says, concerned, moving her legs to test. "R-Rather, it is... it is certainly some kind of... liquid but... it is... Wrong." How wrong? Well, tentacles and hands wrong, that's for sure.
"The drowned dead, attempting to make us share their fate...?" They reach and grab at Elena's legs, at her skirt, her arms and - oh no, at the ribbons hanging from her waist and skirt. The ones with red orbs at the end. "No, wait, do not touch those!!"
Too late.
The waters grab hold of the explosives the Songstress wears as a fashion statement. They are dragged down into the depths. They explode.
BRIGHT SIDE: that'll probably make them let go.
DG: Elena has used her Tool Impact Bomb toward her party's challenge, Engulfing Depths. [OOC] Catenna says, "look it's not my fault we both have noodle arms, kittum" [OOC] Elena says, "it's k, explosives solve all problems"
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline is admittedly curious about exactly what 'Skye' could do for them, but this doesn't seem to be the time or the location to ask questions Ryudo doesn't readily provide the answers to. Instead she just nods toward him as thanks for his help before climbing up the rope.
As they climb, Jacqueline just sends Cyre another, more pointed frown, but it disappears the moment he starts to show some concern. She turns her attention to the hallway, and notes with a frown that it's been filled by ghastly green water.
She lets out a groan of distaste and starts to move forward, though she pauses when she sees her friends in trouble.
Jacqueline reaches into her pouch quickly, drawing out a Crest and invoking it several times in a row, sending out bursts of raw energy at the tentacles grasping Catenna and Cyre.
"Hurry! Before they come back!" She urges, increasing her pace...as much as she could, with the water slowing her movements.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Engulfing Depths.
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
"Sounds good." Iskandra answers Elena as they move forward, and then there's waters that may also be tentacles, and may belong in a different genre with a different rating. Iskandra is pure and innocent, and thus cannot abide such an affront to her dignity. Her response befits a maiden.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!"
And her response befits an alchemists, clay jars are lit and thrown at the ground in an attempt to eradicate the source of this all, while she attempts to hurry along.
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has used her Tool Bomb toward her party's challenge, Engulfing Depths.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is thankful for the timely intervention of the *splish*. If he has a trading card, that's probably what they have listed under his likes: environmental noise interruptions. It gives him all the excuse he needs to not expl--
"Stop." Ethius speaks again, never looking any of them in the eyes. But he says that word more forcefully. Why? Does he know--
He turns about-face with another uncharacteristic wide-eyed look. No, he seems as taken off-guard as anyone else.
To his fortune, there is a small dry patch in the way he can easily get to - a positional advantage he can take, immediately.
He holds a hand out, preparing a Symbological spell of some stripe. In his mind, he's already calculated the easiest way through - what they're all journeying through isn't water, but it should have much the same properties. If that's the case, the best way to dispose of them is...
...
...
Ethius hesitates, and doesn't finish the spell. The sorcery fizzles underneath a lack of spoken word and a missed hand gesture. His eyes close. The moment of solemn... resignation? Is undercut by the sound of many explosives detonating about where Elena and Iskandra stand.
The watery appendages do not take kindly to Ethius finding a higher position, and start to drag him back in by his ankles. He shakes his head, grips his quarterstaff, and wades back towards Cyre and Catenna with quarterstaff gripped tightly in both hands as he...
Tries to stab the tip of it into the appendages. (When you are also capable of equipping spears, these animations sometimes crest the logistically strange, but here it is, quarterstaff stabbin'.)
Over, and over, and over, treating this as, somehow, more important than his own struggles with the depths that dare to drag him down a bit further, bit by bit, inch by inch.
This, too, is a strange set of behaviors when one considers what he just did!
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Engulfing Depths. DG: You've already acted for this round. Please wait for the round GM to push +act/complete.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Despite their best efforts, Ryudo's purchase upon the slimy ropes ies less than adequate and he almost takes a dive into the drink. Dangling precariously by a single arm, the parachute turns out not to be necessary in his case due to the intervention of his companion hawk. Skye proves capable of hauling the weight of a pack-ladden human upward with only a single arm to work with. The peculiarities of the avian are nothing new to some of those gathered, but less so to others. "...Thanks.", he grudgingly offers once safely on the other side. "Even it feels like you were trying to yank my arm out of its socket." Apparently even Filgaia's wildlife is not safe his sass.
Bringing up the rear of the crew, the Geohound has slightly more time to react before the creatures of the deep find their way to him. Trying to take advantage of this, he strains against the slime clutching at his boots to close in on the rest of the crew, the heavy blade of his bastard sword descending into the midst of the tentacles seeking to turn this into the site of amateur kitty porn. Expectedly, this proves to draw their ire, a number of arms and tentacles shifting their attention to the more troublesome pray. "This...is not looking good.", he confides to no one in particular as he continues hacking away to the best of his ability. Skye occasionally attempts to claw at one of the prying appendages, but his ability to help here remains greatly reduced due to the limited headroom.
Just when all seems lost, Ryudo's eyes widen in pure shock as Elena...actually does something useful, unintentionally or no. Just in time for Iskandra to let out her own displeasure known in the form of squeals and explosions.
"Is this the latest fashion trend in Ignas or something?! If you blow a hole in the bottom of the ship, we're going to sink with it!"
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Engulfing Depths. [OOC] Cyre H. Lorentz says, "HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS" =============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>==============================
=============================================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 3 *>============================================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Engulfing Depths *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The waters below glisten; the party is forced, for just one hallway's time, to step into the green waters that illuminate the bottom levels of the ghostly broken ship. The knee-deep waters are heavy, like trying to walk through steel. Hands and tentacles surge from them, watery appendages trying to force everyone down into the water. Fight for your right to remain above the water! =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Weaken========================================== ========================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 4 *>=========================
=============================================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 3 *>============================================== ========================< Results - Engulfing Depths >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elena 4 --(4)--> 8 Pass Impact Bomb 3 Brute Effects: Liability and Strengt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 4 --(5)--> 9 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 4 --(4)--> 8 Pass Invigorating Vapors 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 3 --(5)--> 8 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iskandra Grendorre 6 --(5)--> 11 Pass Bomb 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ryudo 4 --(16)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 4 --(16)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Elena 50 --(15)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Reckless(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Elena has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Khh- Catenna! No, wait--" Cyre reaches out to try and push her out of the way... But it's for naught. The tentacles seize around her too. And all the others. Ethius is able to hold his own, his staff managing to keep the tentacles at bay. Ryudo's sword cleaves through some, but there are too many tentacles; they take him, too. Wrapping, squeezing around his legs, his torso, threatening to shatter bone and squeeze the life out of his flesh. How are there so many tentacles? It can't be an octopus, or a kraken. Something worse.
Something, apparently, that doesn't like magic.
Or explosions.
Jacqueline's spell blasts Cyre free just in time for Elena to ACCIDENTALLY EXPLODE THE HALLWAY. Ikandra follows up by INTENTIONALLY exploding the hallway.
And yet, even as the wood splinters, cracks, buckles and gives way... Catenna is being dragged under. The slime is up to her shoulders, a tentacle wrapping up and over her face--
And then something shines in the murk.
A light. A bright, green blaze that Ethius and Catenna and Jacqueline have all seen before. You can see, barely, within the glare. Something tears through the tentacles-- a... a monster? An enormous, white limb explodes from the water, tipped with claws that could hew through solid steel. They shred through the tentacles in a single blow, scattering the slime that hasn't been cleared by the explosives with a tremendous, screaming gale.
The light fades. And... Cyre is there, holding Catenna above the sludge. "Come on," he growls to the others, "Let's go. Before these things come back!"
DG: Ryudo has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================================================<* Ghost Ship EX *>================================================================ ====================================================<* CHALLENGE - The Body Marks The Spot *>===================================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ------------------------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >------------------------------------------------------------ Here lies a broken down hallway, with bodies strewn about on the floor. Upon closer inspection, there are pressure plates built into the food under the bodies - skeletons, really. What happened to them and when? It's unclear. But thanks to those bodies you might be able to get through the hallway in one piece yourselves. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Injure===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Just when everything seems safe, the waters begin to ripple once more. The surface bubbles angrily, the harbinger of something sinister rising from beneath the waters...! A wretched ghoul emerges, face covered in seaweed as it lumbers forward, bracing itself against a sword that it presses into the shallower sludge before it. It seems that another confrontation is inevitable, at least until a hawk flaps its wings and descends onto his shoulder as if nothing was unusual. In fact, if you ignore the seaweed and tentacles wrapped about it, this figure looks an awful lot like their missing companion.
"...It got away.", the waterlogged Ryudo offers simply as he pulls himself out of the muck, discarding the slimy plant attached to his face with a disgusted flick of the wrist. Thoroughly unamused, he makes his way past the others without further explanation in order to take the lead. Apparently he's decided that only bad things happen when he allows the Songstress to lead their expeditions, and it's simpler to take command of the expedition wordlessly than mince words with her.
Still drenched, Ryudo extends a cautioning hand out to his side as they approach the next compartment of the ship. "Traps ahead." Before them lie the corpses of numerous fallen explorers. It's hard to tell how recent they are from the eerie, pulsating slime that has attached to their earthly forms, giving off an extremely creepy luminescence. "I think I see pressure plates. We might be able to make it through here safely if we learn from their mistakes. Just be careful not to brush up against them, if their weight shifts the mechanism might go off."
The Geohound then turns and fixes its gaze upon a certain follower of Granas in particular. "That means no funeral rites, Songstress."
Glancing up at the low ceiling, once again being denied an opportunity to put his feathered partner's talents to use, Ryudo grumpily grudges forward to begin navigating the maze of bodies.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
This isn't doing much to improve Catenna's optimism in her brute score.
A tentacle coils around her, stifling her gasp. She grasps for Cyre, nearly dropping her sword, but another tentacle has immobilized her sword-arm. Soon enough, she's sinking into the disgusting murk.
Until everything goes green. The light nearly swallows up Catenna. Everything turns into a spray of tentacle gore.
When it's all over, Catenna's slouched against Cyre, dripping water and sludge, her skin and clothing soaked and her hair drenched into wet, dark tendrils. But she clutches Cyre for dear life, looking up at him with wide eyes, lips slightly apart.
She's a bit too shaken to find words. He'll have to find gratitude in her eyes - along with wonder. Maybe even a bit of awe.
"Th-thank you," she finally murmurs. Her cheeks redden as she touches down to the ground. Still stealing glances at Cyre, she pauses to wring out her hair and shuck some slime off herself before pressing onward.
Into a chamber of the dead. Catenna bites her lip at the sight of the bodies strewn across the floor. Her hand dips to her mediums; she swallows a lump in her throat.
Giving Ryudo a sad look, she ignores his exhortation, sinking to her knees and pulling out her incense. She lights up a few sticks and bows her head, murmuring something in her own language. It's incomprehensible but the name Celesdue comes up a few times, along with a few other Guardians.
Catenna will be with you in a moment. Spiritual concerns are spiritual.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Ritual Incense toward her party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
Elena stares at least a little bit (it's more than that) when Cyre displays UNLIMITED POWEEEEEER to save Catenna. It's unclear if she's in in awe, if she's annoyed, or if she's maybe a little bit envious of Catenna. Probably not of being saved by Cyre, specifically, since Elena has experienced that a few too many times already.
They must continue, regardless. And after those explosions, the Songstress seems a bit shaken and... obviously less in control than she wants to appear. Significantly less in control. She's getting a tad jumpy, whenever shadows move about. The sight of traps, of dead bodies, it does nothing to help.
Luckily, Ryudo recenters her.
And it's with Catenna that the priestess ends up agreeing. "Do you not understand these souls haunt these halls because they are denied rest and prayer?" she asks Ryudo, not actually raising her voice, unusually. "Please, we must give them at least some respect. I will catch up," she says, echoing Catenna as she, also, settles down to pray. In her case it's not in any odd language, though, just a plain prayer to Granas that he might grant the dead here respite.
Navigating the traps can wait until braver, sturdier folks have attempted it and mapped the hallway out, besides! ... or set off all of the traps.
DG: Elena has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius gives the emergence of the Swamp Monster(?) a look as the majority of them leave the embrace of the grasping depths, one hand raised... until the bird takes roost upon the Swamp Monster(?). Ethius lowers his hand and says little else, as it is confirmed that they all made it out from there. He seems similarly chill with the sudden emergence of the beast, however momentary, to the green pulse of Filgaia's very winds.
Onward, they go. As far as the gallery of reactions to such a grisly sight goes... curiously, he goes to kneel down before one of them, mindful of the pressure plates.
"I am to assume their demise was not recent." That's about as far as he can go with it, given the environs and the circumstances. "I believe he has the right of it," he backs up Ryudo's thoughts as he withdraws that lens again. That lens is starting to look a bit foggy... nonetheless. Same Symbological cast, same bit of electrical sorcery, and that glow that doesn't pierce the darkness surrounding them as he brings it to one of his eyes. He points a finger out as if tracing invisible lines.
If the pressure plates are connected to something, Ethius will be able to say where. What they might do... that would require direct experimentation, which is probably what they're all trying to avoid to begin with. But hey, that means they don't need more dead bodies for testing the maze's ins and outs! (Yet.)
He doesn't move yet. He stands near Elena - maybe a bit too close, for comfort - as though eavesdropping upon the prayer? Nonetheless, he keeps to her side for as long as it takes.
He brings a hand to his forehead again, but this probably signifies nothing special.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
Iskandra has grown quiet, perhaps her earlier outburst made her a bit more uncertain, or perhaps she's just growing increasingly uncomfortable, but she tries to find the path quietly, and inform others when she has found anything.
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre spends a long moment searching Catenna's eyes, but whether or not he finds anything is going to be a mystery for the ages. He looks as though he's about to say something, when Ryudo suddenly explodes out of the murk, looking every bit like some kind of black lagoon-ish creature. "Jeez, Ryudo, you alright? You look..."
Awful? Terrible?
"Like some kind of terrible sea-zombie."
Yep.
Well, there goes the magic of the moment. Cyre gives Catenna a smile. "Any time," he says, then pauses and glances around. "Well. Hopefully that won't happen again tonight. I don't like seein' you in danger like that--"
Oh.
That's... A lot of dead bodies.
Cyre gives Ryudo a quick glance before nodding to Catenna as she and Elena go to quiet the restless dead. He doesn't nod to Elena though. Because some things just won't change.
"There might be a way forward that we can take advantage of," Cyre suggests. "If we can find where the traps are, we might try to disarm them, too. Well."
"In the worst case," Cyre frowns, "I could try flying across and setting up a rope."
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline still can't help but be a bit awed by Cyre's display. She's only seen it once before...but she's glad he was able to help Catenna. Everything seems to be fine, but something starts to rise from the water...
Jacqueline brandishes the Crest again...but relaxes, when she sees that it's just Ryudo, and not actually a vengful spirit of the forsaken dead.
The Crest is returned to her pouch and Jacqueline follows the others into the trap-filled room ahead.
"So many..." Jacqueline murmurs, looking over all the corpses. She has to kind of agree with Ryudo, but...she can understand Elena's and Catenna's desires. Ethius seems to volunteer to keep and eye on them, and Jacqueline nods toward him. With his Lens, they'd probably have a greater of getting through their prayers without disturbing any traps.
"I'll let you know if we find anything up ahead." Jacqueline comments and starts to follow carefully after Ryudo. She does give Iskandra a glance, though.
"...Are you alright?" She asks, noticing her silence.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Body Marks The Spot.
===============================================================<* Ghost Ship EX *>================================================================ ====================================================<* CHALLENGE - The Body Marks The Spot *>===================================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ------------------------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >------------------------------------------------------------ Here lies a broken down hallway, with bodies strewn about on the floor. Upon closer inspection, there are pressure plates built into the food under the bodies - skeletons, really. What happened to them and when? It's unclear. But thanks to those bodies you might be able to get through the hallway in one piece yourselves. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Injure===========================================
==========================================================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 5 *>=========================================================== ======================================================< Results - The Body Marks The Spot >======================================================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Elena 8 --(5)--> 13 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Jacqueline Barber 9 --(3)--> 12 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Cyre H. Lorentz 8 --(6)--> 14 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Ethius Hesiod 8 --(6)--> 14 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Iskandra Grendorre 11 --(7)--> 18 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------------------------------------�@
DG: The party led by Elena has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. ========================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 5 *>=========================
==========================================================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 5 *>=========================================================== ====================< Results - The Body Marks The Spot >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elena 8 --(5)--> 13 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 9 --(3)--> 12 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 8 --(6)--> 14 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 8 --(6)--> 14 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iskandra Grendorre 11 --(7)--> 18 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ryudo 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 20 --(4)--> 24 Pass Ritual Incense 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Elena 65 --(20)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
It seems the Geohound has a good feel for navigating this sort of situation, because he emerges from the corpse maze no worse for the wear. There's just one problem, which he discovers as he glances over his shoulder to check progress...
The religious liabilities amongst their number ignoring his warnings and throwing off the marching order. It's hard to keep sight of the person ahead of you when random people are stopping to pay their respects. "Seriously? Are you that eager to join their number?", he complains. "The sentiment is nice and all, but I don't think you'll be doing the dead any favors if you follow their example." Suddenly his eyes widen. "No, wait. Cyre! Don't step th--"
The next few moments are chaos. With an ominous click, a panel in the ceiling opens -- and immediately dumps no small amount of fetid sludge down upon him. Two more clicks sound in the confusion that follows, and more of the foul substance is soon to follow.
More alarmingly, as that sludge comes in contact with the existing bodies, it takes on similarly luminescent properties and begins to follow the trail toward those who are doused! For those with spiritual senses, it gives off the feeling of an ominous conduit. "Move! Just get out of there before it catches up with you!"
Fortunately, everyone is swift enough on their feet to avoid whatever nefarious fate befell the corpses in the room behind them, the trails of luminescent green flickering faintly as the "trail" of slime behind the adventuring party runs cold. The crew is no worse for the wear, albeit some of them more significantly gross and foul smelling than others.
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>===============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Captain's Quarters *>======================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The party catches some downtime. Entry into the captain's quarters reveals
countless ancient artifacts; globes and maps from hundreds if not thousands
of years ago, all critically out of date to the point of looking fake.
Golden trinkets, gems, stolen books from libraries that no longer exist. But
there's something in the air. Unease.
And there it is on the table. The captain's log.
Soaked in blood.
Only one entry has survived the splatters.
"I can hear it now. Its hold on the ship makes the wood creak to its limits.
The crewmembers it killed won't stop howling in my mind. I'm the last. I
won't let it have me. I'll kill that accursed monster so our voyage can have
a tomorrow."
The room shakes. Massive tentacles burst through the wooden floor, followed
by the body of the squid they belong to. The SQUID KING, surrounded by a
ghostly aura of darkness, attacks, with both might and sorcery!
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound============================================
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
"I-I'm fine." Iskandra answers Jacqueline with an obvious lie, as they enter the captain's quarters. She approaches the log and reaches the one suviving entry out loud, her voice quivering slightly as she does so. "I can hear it now. Its hold on the ship makes the wood creak to its limits. The crewmembers it killed won't stop howling in my mind. I'm the last. I won't let it have me. I'll kill that accursed monster so our voyage can have a tomorrow."
Then the room shakes and massive tentacles burst through, a squid follows, and it's shrouded in darkness. It neither hesitates to attack, nor does it appear at all weak. There's only one way in her current state for Iskandra to respond.
"EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeek!!!"
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Captain's Quarters.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna doesn't interrupt her devotions no matter how much Ryudo sasses back at her. In fact, she continues to kneel and pray, gesturing slowly with her arms moving through the air in crescent patterns before she clasps her hands again.
She looks up, then, and watches the chaos as the rest of the group ends up besludged. Well, the Ryudo of the group.
"From where I stand, I am the one not covered in obscenity," she remarks before standing up and weaving her way through the slime with utter aplomb.
Religious people, man.
Soon enough, they're through, and into the captain's quarters. There's no relaxation. Catenna can feel the unease. Slowly, she moves to the captain's table, biting her lower lip as she looks down at the bloodied pages.
"I think," she murmurs, "that I know what it is."
The room shatters as the tentacles erupt forth. "The Squid King!" Catenna yelps, wide-eyed. Lunging backward, she slashes at a tendril with her sword. Iskandra screams; Catenna snaps a look towards her, moving to try and shove her out of the way of a grasping tendril.
Then she whirls, fingers dancing through the air. "Celesdue ishan diale!" she calls out, her voice resonating in the air.
The air vibrates with a subtle power. An immense weight begins to pull upon the tendrils. The Squid King is immense; Catenna's powers work better on immense things. The squid's own mass will begin to work against it, sheer gravity pulling its tendrils towards the floor and making them cumbersome and heavy to lift. Focusing hard, Catenna sweats as she holds the spell, struggling to pin the beast.
"Quickly, do it!!" she grates through her teeth.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Celesdue Medium toward her party's challenge, Captain's Quarters.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline frowns. That's an easy lie to see through, but she doesn't press the issue. They reach the Captain's Quarters, which is full of treasures. Jacqueline's interested in the books, admittedly...
But she pauses, as Iskandra reads out the captain's log...and then, as if on cue, a massive thing bursts into the room, clearly the owner of the tentacles they'd encountered previously.
And Iskandra is...apparently freaking out. Jacqueline moves to interpose herself between Iskandra and the creature.
"Miss Iskandra, please, get ahold of yourself! It'll be alright!" Jacqueline urges. She reaches into her bags and pulls out a bottle of foul-smelling black liquid, hurling it directly toward the Squid King's face.
She follows up by drawing out a Crest and invoking it, causing a bolt of lightning to strike the bottle mid-flight, sending a rain of flaming liquid and molten glass to assail the creature. And, hopefully, Catenna's gravity would pull it all right into the Squid King.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Reliable Repellant toward her party's challenge, Captain's Quarters.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is one of the last ones in, much to his chagrin - but he did seem to decide, in the heat of the moment, it was more important to see to the well-being of those with more spiritual concerns. When they make it to the Captain's Quarters by the skin of their teeth (and the wrinkling over their noses), Ethius takes a few steps decisive strides towards Iskandra as she starts to read out the Captain's Log.
"Miss Iskandra, allow m--" He finds himself having to dive back as an emerging tentacle slaps him up against a wall. Was this creature the one they were tiptoeing past earlier?! It's awake now - alert.
He turns his head as Catenna gives it a positive identification. He tilts his head downward and re-gathers himself after that painful impact, picking up one of the satchels at his belt.
"I will provide us a smoke cover." That's for the benefit of those unfamiliar, as he enchants the satchel with a dust-based Symbology spell. After the usual lights and syllables, he tosses it straight at the writhing mass of tentacles and seafaring terror. An explosive burst of dust, smoke, and other fine particle matter threatens to lower their visibility and maybe irritate their skin by just how dry it is, as Ethius moves to reposition and figure their next move from there.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Captain's Quarters.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Well.
Cyre just got slimed.
Fortunately he manages to get out only covered in horrible unspeakable fluids and not entirely obliterated by whatever foul magic was building in that chamber.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that he's in a chamber full of gold and treasure and ancient knowledge that tantalizes at the reader's curiosity and bids them to read deeper into the forgotten words. Why is that bad news?
Because the squid king is here too.
"Finally," Cyre snarls as the thing emerges. The world ripples around him, vortices of stagnant air gathering into discs of screaming, cutting wind. "I have a bone to pick with you, you invertibrate bastard."
He gestures. A howling gale sweeps into the thing's flailing tentacles, launching disks of cutting wind right into boneless limbs.
We're makin' ghost calimari here tonight, guyyysssss
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
Elena is too caught in prayer to notice that Ethius has gotten up close. She wouldn't mind, though: it's perfectly acceptable to get close to priests during prayer. Maybe some other time, they can talk about why he was acting so weird this entire time! But not while they're still in peril, alas.
And boy are they.
The traps go off, and Elena spends the entire time running from the odd slime screeching in Cyre's general direction for setting things off. She didn't SEE it, but she heard Ryudo warn him. They do outrun the danger, at least, and finally reach a closed room. On one hand, no exit is bad. On the other, that means the room is probably safe if they can't find anything hostile in it.
Before she can gawk at all the ancient baubles around around the room, the Squid King crashes the party. Elena clutches her Mana Egg, and lifts it up high.
"How could a beast be responsible for this?!" Good question. Maybe defeating it will answer that. Or maybe not. "Lord Granas, I call upon your healing waters! Bless my companions and mend their wounds!" Bringing a priest is never a bad idea, even if she's screechy. Soothing blue waves of light, like water, spread through the party and mend body and soul, so that they can fight this squid with even more oomph.
Hopefully it's enough.
DG: Elena has used her Tool Mist Egg toward her party's challenge, Captain's Quarters. DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Captain's Quarters.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Catenna's remark toward Ryudo is met with a smile. An extremely unpleasant sneer that reveals pearly whites - ironically the only part of him that passes for clean at this point. "Yeah, but you've got a nice coat of liability in its place. I was expecting better of someone keeping Cyre's company." Rolling his eyes, he turns back toward the trek before them. "Feel free to step down from the high horse you share with the Songstress any time, 'Priestess'. Forgive me if I don't lend you my arm."
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, more pressing matters present themselves before Ryudo's toxicity can tank the party morale any further. "Weapons free!", he shouts as the doom of this vessel's captain makes itself known. Placing a hand to the emblem at his chest, Ryudo calls upon a Guardian's will without so much as a prayer. "Schtudark, with me!" The air around the adventurers takes on a faint shimmer as their defenses are reinforced, taking with it some of the weariness from their earlier encounters.
Ryudo charges toward the King Squid, weapon raised high. This type of work is far more suited to him.
DG: Ryudo has used his Tool Schturdark Medium toward his party's challenge, Captain's Quarters.
==============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>===============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Captain's Quarters *>======================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The party catches some downtime. Entry into the captain's quarters reveals
countless ancient artifacts; globes and maps from hundreds if not thousands
of years ago, all critically out of date to the point of looking fake.
Golden trinkets, gems, stolen books from libraries that no longer exist. But
there's something in the air. Unease.
And there it is on the table. The captain's log.
Soaked in blood.
Only one entry has survived the splatters.
"I can hear it now. Its hold on the ship makes the wood creak to its limits.
The crewmembers it killed won't stop howling in my mind. I'm the last. I
won't let it have me. I'll kill that accursed monster so our voyage can have
a tomorrow."
The room shakes. Massive tentacles burst through the wooden floor, followed
by the body of the squid they belong to. The SQUID KING, surrounded by a
ghostly aura of darkness, attacks, with both might and sorcery!
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound============================================
=========================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 6 *>========================== ========================< Results - Captain's Quarters >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elena 13 --(4)--> 17 Pass Mist Egg 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 12 --(4)--> 16 Pass Reliable Repellant 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyre H. Lorentz 14 --(6)--> 20 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 14 --(5)--> 19 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iskandra Grendorre 18 --(5)--> 23 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryudo 25 --(8)--> 33 Fail Schturdark Medium 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catenna 24 --(3)--> 27 Pass Celesdue Medium 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Elena 85 --(5)--> 90 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Elena has passed this challenge! The party gained 5 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
In her discomfort, Iskandra gets swatted aside by one of the tentacles, and the squid king approaches Cyre, the tentacles undisturbed by his howling gale. Then Ryudo gets grabbed, and things look about to get awful, but a foul liquid thrown by Jacqueline makes the squid king recoil, granting Catenna the opportunity she needs to pin the beast down.
This grants Elena the opportunity to heal the wounds of the group, allowing to fight against the squid with renewed vigor, and it's Ethius's grenade that finally drives it off, at least for the time being, so they can all recover both mentally and physically, and prepare for what's to come next.
DG: Catenna has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>=============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - It's Sinking! *>========================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The ghostly Squid King has been defeated - or perhaps, it simply withdrew back to the depths under the ship. You have no time to double check. The ship rumbles and begins inclining itself. Is it sinking? Can ghost ships sink? The answer is yes, apparently. Water begins filling the captain's quarters and you must escape with whatever you can carry. If you can just remember your way back out fast enough, you might even be able to avoid having to swim and getting your prizes wet. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Slow===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Defeating something as vast as the Squid King is impossible - and Catenna's too distracted to go for the kill. The King's tendrils slap at the group. Two of them lash at Cyre, coiling around him.
"GET OFF OF HIM," Catenna suddenly shouts, about as loud as she's ever shouted.
There's a sudden hiss of steel, and a wet, gruesome sound. Catenna flashes past and lands in a crouch beside Cyre, her sword out at her side. Two severed tentacles spin through the air and hit the ground, slouching off of Cyre and spasming away.
Ethius's powder grenade does the best. With a gurgle and a rapid, agitated clicking of its enormous beaked maw, the Squid King wrenches itself from the hull of the ghastly ship - and leaves behind a vast hole.
A hole through which ocean water begins to gush. Sucking in a breath, Catenna turns to Cyre. "Are you alright," she asks as she reaches for him, attempting to take his hand in hers. "Quickly, we have to get out of here before the ship sinks...!"
It occurs to Catenna to try and swim. She dismisses it; that's a desperate measure. "Come on!" she calls to the others as she kicks the door of the captain's chambers open, sprinting out into the corridor beyond. Water is gushing in through the portholes now, seeping in through cracks in the ceiling beams. It's like the entire ship was shaken by the impact of the Squid King, and its departure has left too much damage, everywhere.
"There must be a liferaft," Catenna calls, looking back to the others. "Can anyone see one?!"
DG: Catenna has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
<Pose Tracker> Iskandra Grendorre has posed.
Iskandra is much relieved by the simple fact that, with the ship seemingly sinking, they finally have no other option than to leave. She may not be in the best mood, she may still be shaken, but she can run and look around for a liferaft or other way to safety, that comes entirely naturally in her current mental state.
DG: Iskandra Grendorre has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
This ship's story ends in tragedy, but what of before? Even with a great Squid King-shaped gap threatening to take it (and everyone on it) down into the depths forever, among the Drifters, the heart should scream for the riches of the past. To think of all the stories left behind.
"Ghost ship." Ethius murmurs, one hand to his forehead. Now is not a time for him to have another canned animation, stoically standing as the ship floods. It's amazing he can stand upright, with all the rocking and shaking - or after having been slammed into the wall earlier.
"They call this... a ghost ship." He says these words quietly, but just audible enough to be heard by the others even as the destruction mounts from the rising waters. Within his reach, riches. There's a small musical box right nearby that could fetch a countless amount of gella, pending the ability to repair it from exposure to the elements. There's a map that represents the understanding of the world's oceans at the time, over there. The captain's journal itself is really something, if anyone can make out anything more underneath the blood.
"It shouldn't be here." Those words are spoken with a chilling certainty. The tattoos of his visible forearms light up again as he begins chanting and gesturing anew - why?! If he stands here for much longer, he'll, he'll...!
The cabin finds itself at the mercy of a number of rapid-fire heat-based spells. To warp, to obscure, to burn - basically if there's any loot that people didn't grab from the get-go, Ethius has, for whatever reason, decided to risk life and limb to utterly try and destroy it.
At least, as much of it as he can before he heads back out to the deck with the rest and resolve whatever means of escape there may yet be.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline's kind of in awe as Catenna rushes at the Squid King, her blade flying through his tentacles like it was nothing.
Unfortunately, the Squid King's defeat has...left a gaping hole in the ship.
"I agree!" Jacqueline says with a nod.
The astute would notice that the stolen books littering the floor are...missing, and it's hard to tell for just how long they've been gone. Jacqueline's bags also seem to be substantially more full than they were when she entered the room. There's also a two-thirds empty bottle of Invigoration Elixir in her hands...
Hmmm...
"I'll keep an eye out for it...but right now, we just need to focus on making it out of here!" She says.
"As long as we don't sink completely, I'll have a way of getting us out here." She says.
That way would probably be 'call up Riesenlied', but with luck they wouldn't have to resort to that.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Invigoration Elixir toward her party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Ethius, what are you doing," Catenna shouts as Ethius lights himself up. And then the flames fly. Fire rips through the hull of the phantom ship. Ectoplasmic wood seems solid enough here, catching fire; it spreads wildly, sweeping across crumbling beams and dancing through the pitch spread by barrels of it ruptured in the flooding.
A minute ago the ship was sinking.
Now it's sinking and on fire.
Catenna stares at Ethius in abject horror.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Unfortunately for Ryudo, he's more than just water-logged -- he's mired in slime from that first close encounter, and it's interfering with his movements. He barely has an opportunity to cleave into the King Squid because he's hoisted off his feet, and he spends the rest of the encounter hacking away at the tentacle waving him around like a maraca. Between the combined efforts of the adventuring crew, the abomination decides that discretion is the better part of and discards Ryudo with a rough toss into the wall, leaving him to ricochet off into the floor.
It would be nice if Ryudo could lay here for a moment, but there's one small problem; the floor is experiencing a moment of indecision on whether or not it would enjoy being the wall instead. The hawk Skye latches onto his arm and hurriedly hauls him upright, the youth's posture shifting to accomodate the awkward angle of the floor as he's held upright. "On it.", he calls to Catenna, apparently capable of putting aside grievances when the group's life is at risk. "Skye, I think I saw one in a room off to the side. Let's backtrack."
Taking a running start while the footing still permits it, Ryudo leaps into the air and...takes flight? Skye retains a firm grip on his arms and hauls the mercenary fully into the air with him, and the two attempt to make good use of their aerial superiority to scout ahead of the team frantically.
DG: Ryudo has used his Tool Skye toward his party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
The fact the Squid King retreats should be a source of joy, but Elena is instead caught wondering why the ship is suddenly starting to feel... lopsided. And then Catenna says it's sinking, and it becomes kind of obvious this is the case when water enters the equation.
"This vessel should not be floating in this state to begin with! What made it decide to only now respect physical laws?!" A great question. The answer is that the ship hates you all, probably.
Elena isn't concerned for riches or treasures; she doesn't encumber herself with loot, instead pressing on and out of the room as swiftly as her feet can carry her. Ethius said something - it's important.
"It should not! I am concerned we did not solve the issue! The crew... where was the crew?" Nowhere they went, evidently. Talk about bad luck. Or good luck?
Either way, the horrors of the ship won't stop tonight. Even if it sinks. Elena frowns, unhappy at the idea. Maybe she should be more concerned about escaping the vessel before drowning.
Oh now Ethius is burning it all.
Maybe he's on to something, destroying whatever tethers the spirits to the ship might solve the problem...? If only it were that easy.
DG: Elena has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Well. The shoe is certainly on the other foot now.
Cyre barely has a chance to scream as Catenna's blade slices into the flailing calimari. The tentacles slough away just as they had begin to constrict around his core. He gives her a wry smile as she comes to fetch him, "Wow. So this is what being the damsel in distress is like, huh? I could get used to--"
Zip!
Catenna goes running! The water begins to rise. Cyre frowns as they sprint to ever more scarce dry ground. Can a ghost ship even really sink? Was this even a ghost ship at all!? It seems like it was more of a... giant... squid ship.
But. They need to find a life raft. Or...
"Catenna, hold on," Cyre says as they charge down the corridor. This becomes especially more relevant when Ethius starts SETTING EVERYTHING ON FIRE. "Guardians-- ETHIUS YOU MORON." Cyre... smacks him upside the head with his staff. Good-heartedly, but still. "We need to get out of here, not die in the burning wreckage! Damnit, give me a minute..."
Suddenly the air around him ripples. A series of brilliant, radiant beams lance into the ceiling, blasting a hole straight upwards and out of the sinking ship. His parachute suddenly inflates, launching him-- and hopefully Catenna- right into the sky.
He leaves a rope behind for everyone to grab onto and, hopefully, at least make it up to the top deck.
Damnit Ethius.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Reverse Parachute toward his party's challenge, It's Sinking!.
==============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>=============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - It's Sinking! *>========================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The ghostly Squid King has been defeated - or perhaps, it simply withdrew back to the depths under the ship. You have no time to double check. The ship rumbles and begins inclining itself. Is it sinking? Can ghost ships sink? The answer is yes, apparently. Water begins filling the captain's quarters and you must escape with whatever you can carry. If you can just remember your way back out fast enough, you might even be able to avoid having to swim and getting your prizes wet. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Slow===========================================
=========================<* Ghost Ship EX - Round 7 *>========================== ==========================< Results - It's Sinking! >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elena 17 --(100)--> 117 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 16 --(100)--> 116 Pass Invigoration Elixir 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyre H. Lorentz 20 --(100)--> 120 Fail Reverse Parachute 1 Agility Effects: Rally and Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 19 --(100)--> 119 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iskandra Grendorre 23 --(100)--> 123 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryudo 33 --(100)--> 133 Pass Skye 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catenna 27 --(100)--> 127 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Elena 90 --(10)--> 100 Fail Conditions: Fright(1)|Hesitate(2)|Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(1)|Stalwart(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Elena is too exhausted to continue! DG: Jacqueline Barber is too exhausted to continue! DG: Cyre H. Lorentz is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ethius Hesiod is too exhausted to continue! DG: Iskandra Grendorre is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ryudo is too exhausted to continue! DG: Catenna is too exhausted to continue! DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Elena has successfully explored Ghost Ship EX!
==============================<* Ghost Ship EX *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Very Ancient Map *>======================= |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A part of the ship has refused to sink. A wall from the captain's quarters, onto which was displayed a six foot high twelve foot long map of Filgaia from well over a century past. Nothing on it quite looks the same as it does now, and many names and locations are faded out, but this find is beyond any doubt a grand one. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Ethius, why," Catenna yelps, wringing her hands for a moment.
Cyre tears a hole in the ceiling; Ryudo's bird soars through, for freedom. But a gush of water soon follows. The ship is slipping below the waterline and beginning to pitch. Blazing beams crumble away from the hull. The flames swell and bloom. They wreath around Ethius Hesiod, his body cast in a deep, sooty shadow and only the whites of his eyes able to be seen before crackling beams descend in front of him, separating him from the rest of the group.
And then there's a horrible splintering sound as the burning ghost ship splits in half at the middle. The captain's cabin crumbles away from the stern as the rest of it pitches keel-up, the prow pitching nose to the sky. Flames and smoke gout from the ship in an inky column. Displaced water begins to suck the seven adventurers down as the ship plunges towards the bottom of the ocean. Swimming against it is useless. Even Cyre's parachute is simply waterlogged. The ship descends, vanishing into the murk and carrying half the CaraKin and their friends to Davy Jones's locker.
And then, in the deep, there's a spark of vivid, steady blue.
For just a second, six pairs of eyes will see something incredible. A vast sea serpent, coiling through the deep, then vanishing after a second. An incredible PRESENCE.
The presence of a Guardian.
The direction of the water changes. A vast wave swells up from the bowels of the ocean. It carries wood and bodies with it. In seconds, Cyre, Catenna, Iskandra, Jacqueline, Ryudo and Elena are hurtled to the surface by the vast wave, popping up one by one.
They're able to climb up to a floating raft. Catenna gasps as she flops onto it, barely realizing that the map is actually a severed wall with a priceless old map of Filgaia on it.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
---
The sky glistened under a moonless... night? The assortment of lights against the sky suggested a time where the sunlight did not obscure the splendors of distant stars, but yet, a celestial body that couldn't have been anything other than a sun hung in the sky. Day, or night?
It was beautiful.
Two people sat together on a simple ferry boat, as their exhaled breath formed misty spectres that would melt away into the air around them. One of them held a pair of wooden oars between their mitten-clad hands. Their features were difficult to discern, underneath several thick layers of furry animal pelts. It was folly to say the name of the animal, or an approximate likeness, as their iridescent fur coat protected its wearer from the elements of cold.
That one was of a wide build. Overly long shoulders... or arms that were too long? Their head seemed too flat to even be a head. Maybe there was an absence of a neck. Whatever physical maladies plagued them, this did not hinder their ability to row it across the body of water. Its expanse stretched further than either of their eyes could see. Chunks of transulcent material - ice? - flowed past the golden-hued water.
"It did appear about the time of the heavenly meeting," These words were strange. They could not be captured in written word. It is exactly what they said, but the manner of pronounciation, of syllable stress... they were simultaneously understandable, and yet, not, "you are inviting a transgression for us both."
"I acknowledge the sacrifice you are making... and the risks we bring to our friendship," said the passenger, one who had a most familiar voice and tone. From their eyes, they, too, were clad from head to toe in similar wear. "But in the name of our faith, by the teachings of Lyrand, such a matter requires our attention."
"A sea vessel fit only for lost souls." The rower spoke, their voice softened aside from a few harsh syllables to a pattern that one could never have grown familiar with. "Where it must go, we need not follow now. We will meet our dearest friend, Lyrand, when we first sleep for the length of the watching eye."
"That the sea vessel for lost souls adrifts near us all, that is interesting." The passenger reasoned. "Lyrand does not condemn an inquisitive nature."
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
"A form only those who first sleep the length of the watching eye can see." The rower said. "Neither of us are sleepers."
The passenger's head turned, out into the water. Their eyes were greeted by further shining colors, of a body whose sheen seemed like that of a mirror, unblemished by the elements. The glows of smaller lights - stars, themselves? - hum brightly from the body every so often. Underneath the indeterminate time of day, a great shade starts to be cast over both present upon the ferry. The ferry was dwarfed by its presence and scope.
"We are not sleepers." The passenger reassured. "But that is what is before us?"
"The reason is in unison, as friends of Lyrand, that this is what is now before us." The rower's voice, already hard to follow by the ear, seems to grow more erratic. "But I am still among the awakened! Lyrand is no friend to one who keeps the knowledge from others... but the knowledge is not for the awakened!" The rower drew up their oars, and clutched their... face?
"It is only for those who first sleep the length of the watching eye." The passenger raised their left hand. The pelt about their arm slipped, exposing a darkened sleeve of flesh against the bitter cold about them as their ferry drifted closer and closer to the mysterious vessel yet.
Tattoos of a familiar shape and coloration peeked into one's vision.
---
In the present, Ethius finds himself adrift across another piece of driftwood. The water underneath nips at the heels, threatening to claim him as another victim of the open ocean.
He does not relent to it.
Another piece of driftwood, of the right width and length to be broken in half into makeshift oars, are taken hand in hand. He closes his eyes and rows with a sense of purpose - and renewed endurance, in the wake of their narrow escape.
He had much to consider. There were gaps in his memory that required filling. This, itself, was not an answer.
It was a new set of questions.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.
WHAT IS HAPPENING, Elena would like to scream. Her mouth is full of water and this makes it very difficult to do so. There's a presence, a powerful one, suddenly swooping them up, pulling them out of the water and dropping them to safety. Relative safety, at least, which given circumstances was a pretty good deal.
Soaked from head to toe, carrying not a scrap of treasure, not that she desired it, the Songstress hangs from th safety raft after the Guardian was so kind as to spit her back out, so to speak. She seems... well, it's hard to tell. Is it the near-drowning experience part that rattled her, or the appearance of a Guardian, who actually did something useful and that didn't involve death traps in a temple?
It's a meek and weak "... I believe I owe you both apologies," that finally comes out in Cyre and Catenna's direction, before the Songstress's head drops onto the wood in exhaustion. Take it while you can, because a near-dead and tired Elena is in no state to screech and argue. When she's back on her feet she will likely change her mind again.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre knows exactly what is happening.
Lucadia. The Sea Guardian. She... Saved them. All of them. Cyre rises to the surface clinging to the same piece of driftwood that Catenna had seized. He just... floats there, staring into the sky. No treasure, but... Well. They escaped with their lives.
That's worth something.
Also the payment for the job. That's worth something too.
But more than anything, worth more than all the treasure in the world...
...They got...
...Elena to actually apologize for something.
Holy crap, it's a real, Guardian-given miracle.
"Yeah, well. Now we have to get back to shore." Cyre frowns, unfurling his parachute again. It might be too waterlogged to take flight, but... "Someone help me get this thing strung up as a sail."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna's left hand clutches a stone tablet; it's in plain view as the dripping priestess turns her gaze to Elena. The emblem of Lucadia is apparent on its face. Not only was a Guardian there, it came at the behest of a priestess, even if it was for only a second. "Just consider yourself fortunate Lucadia consented to come," she says wearily. "I do not have the same relationship with her that I have with the Moon... but they are all bound together."
She closes her eyes and sighs softly. "...But I accept your apology, Priestess."
Wet hair hanging around her face, Catenna looks down at Ethius for a moment, clutching the driftwood and picking up an oar. The priestess says nothing to him. She looks to Cyre instead. "Good idea," she says, taking a moment to wring her hair out before standing and moving towards him, helping him to rig up the sail.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
They run, but the flames threaten to consume the entire ship before they can escape. Jacqueline reaches into her bags for something, but she can't find it before it's too late.
Her world becomes full of water and darkness. She drifts downward, and then, she sees it. If she weren't holding her breath for dear life, her mouth would gape in awe.
Lucadia...
The Sea Guardian...
And then she finds herself being carried upward by a vast wave - not crushing, but warm and pleasant - that deposits her and the others on what appears to be a raft.
No, not a raft, this is...!
"Oh! It's that map! Somehow it made it out of the fires unscathed!" Jacqueline remarks. Internally she's freaking out, but she has to remain calm...has to center herself so she doesn't freak out externally. Focus on the here and now.
"R-right...let me just..." Jacqueline takes the map and rolls it up VERY CAREFULLY before depositing it into her bags.
...One has to wonder how they aren't all completely soaked through right now, but that's a secret that Jacqueline isn't about to reveal.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"So. Theory," Cyre says as they get the sail up and going. "That ship wasn't even really haunted. Or rather, it was, but that's not why it was sailing around. That giant monster squid was carrying it around, luring people like us in so that it could eat us."
Beat.
"Basically the haunting might've just been... incidental. Is what I'm saying."
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
The mercenary's airborn quest for a lifeboat is met with failure as a falling plank nails him in the forehead with a sickening thump, the youth torn from the grip of the hawk, much to it dismay. "Ryudo!", cries the unfamiliar voice above the group, but the strangeness of the event is swiftly lost to more urgent matters. Ryudo lands in the water, struggling ineffectively against unconsciousness as blood steals away what little visibility remained to his heavy eyelids. He's vaguely aware of a presence beneath them -- a Guardian, if his heritage as a Garlan is to believed. Darkness descends upon him, and then...
Ryudo awakens briefly on the makeshift raft, coughing up water over the edge. He's alive, apparently. He hears the sounds of familiar voices, and he can tell by the feel of the air that they're outside once more. Which is good, because he doesn't have the energy in him to turn over and confirm the sky above them as matters are currently.
Instead of reveling in the success of their escape with his other companions, his frown deepens and his eyes slide shut once more. He offers no apologies, and he speaks not of the map. The only thought on his mind right now is that he needs to get away from these people as soon as possible, and for that he must conserve his energy so that his legs can support him once they're ashore.
Let them have their map.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"...The map survived?" Catenna blinks at Jay before looking at the ancient document, her eyebrows coming up with wonder. "Then... then we should save it... I am sure it can be put to some use."
She drips persistently as she helps Cyre to rig the sail. The sun still hangs on the horizon, the heat beating down upon the group there in the open ocean. As the wind teases at the sail, Catenna moues her lips and admits, "It would not be beyond the power of the King Squid... he is reputed to be most... clever."
As Ryudo awakens in a fit of coughing, Catenna turns away from the sail to check up on him. He seems alright, though, if out of sorts.
The priestess simply regards him, quiet.
"Cyre," she says in a soft voice.
Catenna looks up to the cat-eared man. "Thank you," she says, reaching out to take his hand.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"I have some ideas for it, actually..." Jacqueline says, glancing toward Catenna. "If we compare it to a modern-day map of Filgaia, we might be able to use it to find old ruins we had no clue about before. There might be ancient knowledge sleeping between the surface that no one's figured out yet!"
She doesn't mind saying this within earshot of Iskandra, Elena, and Ryudo. They helped find the map, after all, so if they wanted in on any of those ruins, they were welcome to it.
Cyre raises an excellent point, though.
"...You might be right. I didn't really see anything that said ghosts to me in there, and it displayed sorcerous capabilities when we were fighting it...I imagine the mists were its doing, as well. They say squids are rather intelligent...and a squid as large as that one? It's no wonder it would come up with a scheme like that..." She agrees.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre squeezes gently around Catenna's hand, his glove in tatters from that crisis in the tentacle tunnel. He gives her a smile and a wink, "I should be thanking you. By my count, you saved me twice today, and everyone else besides at least once."
"Come on," he pulls the parachute taut as the wind picks up. "Let's go home."